Print Vs Digital

In 2007 Amazon introduced their original Kindle, an e-book reader that enables users to shop for and download books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking. Since then the digital reading phenomenon has taken the world by storm and just three years later in 2010 Nicholas Negroponte, founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab and One Laptop per Child Association was one of many declaring the physical book dead in as little as five years. 

According to Barnes and Noble executive Marc Parrish “The book is changing more radically now, and quicker than movies or music or newspapers have”. As a result consumers seem to have deemed the future of book publishing as digital, but like CD’s and VHS will print too run its course? With the growing popularity of e-Readers and tablets the rise in e-book reading and the decline in print book reading is almost inevitable, however according to an article published in a December 2012 issue of The Guardian “The strongest weekly sale of print books in three years is being hailed as a sign that "real books" are fighting back in a digital age thought to be dominated by e-readers and tablet computers”.

The results of a Pew Research Center Survey released December of 2012 provide further evidence that the death of print has been exaggerated by showing that the number of those who read e-books increased from 16% of all Americans ages 16 and older to 23%, whilst the number of those who read printed books in the previous 12 months fell from 72% of the population ages 16 and older to just 67%. Despite the increase in those who read e-books and the decrease in those who read printed books of the 75% of Americans ages 16 and older said to have read a book of any platform in the previous 12 months 67% of them said they had read a printed book.

Introduction

Large developments in the advancement of technology have seen digital reading device sales surge, in turn provoking what is today thought to be a sizable argument both for and against the ‘death of print’ within the publishing industry. When it comes to the future of books and reading will this too be a case of out with the old, in with the new? For me at least, holding a book in my hand and the act of physically turning a page cannot be achieved by simply staring at a screen. E-Readers and tablets are not likely to replace the book; these gadgets are simply a compliment to traditional reading. Not a substitute. Print is here to stay.

One of many topical points surrounding this argument includes the contemporary debate of print Vs digital. Is print dead? Or is there something about the print book we just can’t give up? What is the future of the book if e-Readers and tablets slowly dominate the printed format as the preferred vehicle on which people read books? 

Sources

1. Barnes and Noble sees quarterly sales surge, losses fall to $41 million
2. The death of print has been greatly exaggerated
3. Out with the old, in with the new?
4. Amazon Kindle
5. The e-book tsunami
6. Predicting the death of print
7. E-book sales top paperback for first time
8. E-book reading jumps; print book reading declines
9. Print book sales rise hailed as a sign of a fight back in a digital world
10. On the future of the book. James Gleick
11. What will become of the paper book?
12. The smell of books
13. Behold: a future of print and digital reading
14. Want to know prints future? It will cost you...